


Seems I'd Been There Before

by Ningikuga



Category: Atop the Fourth Wall, That Guy with the Glasses/Channel Awesome
Genre: Gen, Song Lyrics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-11 22:51:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4455554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ningikuga/pseuds/Ningikuga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Todd's working his night job to make ends meet, and one of the customers has old-fashioned tastes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seems I'd Been There Before

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt](http://tgwtg-meme.livejournal.com/1329.html?thread=1327409) on the LJ TGWTG kinkmeme, although this one isn't particularly kinky.
> 
> This work is intended to depict characters/personae, not real people, and absolutely no implications about the people who write and play those characters are intended or should be inferred.

The maitre d’ chuckled at him as he fumbled for his time card. “Still with the gimmick, huh, kid?” the man in the uniform said. “I mean, I guess it’s working so far, but you look like you just got back from playing Zorro in a high-school play, you know.”

“I do not,” Todd said, initialing the card. The time clock was one of the old-fashioned ones; it printed the current time - 8:54 PM - onto the beige cardstock in dark blue ink with a _ka-chunk!_ “I look like I just got back from playing Zorro in a college play, or maybe community theater. If I looked like I was still in high school, no one would buy me drinks.”

The headwaiter laughed. “Fair enough,” he conceded. “Knock ‘em dead, Zorro.”

“That’s the plan,” Todd replied, hanging up his coat, tugging down his mask, and giving his reflection a quick once-over. Gimmick it might be, but he was still not ready to risk mixing his day job with the rapidly-expanding collection of side projects he was accumulating just to make ends meet. The black fabric mask concealed his face from the nose up, and a rather shapeless black fedora covered most of his hair, at least in the back. The dress code of the restaurant and piano bar meant he had to wear a suit, but he could get away with being a little less formal than the maitre d’; he wore a charcoal gray suit coat and pants with a black button-down shirt, scuffed black oxfords, and no tie.

In the dim light of the employee coatroom, he was barely more than a silhouette, except for his chin, neck, and hands. If he could do something about those, he would, but playing piano in gloves was too difficult, and the times he’d tried a full-face mask he looked too much like Cobra Commander. Hiding the back of his neck would take either a scarf, too warm for most of the year, or a hood, which didn’t really go with the suit coat. This would have to do, at least for now.

It was a Tuesday, so the happy hour shift hadn’t had a piano player tonight, just the piped-in muzak. It was inoffensive, which was about all Todd could say about it. Unlike a lot of the guys who performed in places like this, places that had a dress code beyond “no shirt, no shoes, no service,” he actually liked playing top-40 pop music as well as old standards, but here lately it had taken a turn for the worse. One of his other side gigs was reviewing touring live music shows for the local paper, and he’d realized he was looking forward to the nostalgia acts over the recent ones more and more lately.

He settled on the piano bench and surveyed the crowd. It was a little thin tonight. That was disappointing; most of his income from this gig was from tips. Still, the cars in the parking lot and the shoes under the tables all looked expensive; he only had to make a few people happy to have a shot at a few big-spender gratuities. The crowd skewed a little younger than usual, too, mostly people who looked to be in their forties and fifties under the carefully-applied makeup, hair dye, and botox. Time to pull out some classic easy listening instead of the mid-century crooners, Todd decided, and started in on “How Sweet It Is.”

Taylor gave way to Carole King, then Billy Joel, and by then the oversized brandy glass on the piano was indeed accumulating a bit of bread. He was taking a water break and pondering what to pull out next when a slightly nasal voice tinged with New Jersey’s twang asked, “Hey, kiddo, d’ya take requests?”

“That depends,” Todd answered, setting his glass down and inclining his head towards the tip jar. His interlocutor was actually slightly overdressed for the club, in a modern-cut tuxedo, but it looked at little worn at the cuffs; his shoes were as badly scuffed as Todd’s, although they’d clearly been polished more recently. It was oddly difficult to tell how old he was; his face was clear and unwrinkled, and there was no trace of gray in his hair, but there was something much older about the hands and eyes.

The other man made a noise somewhere between a snort and a chuckle, and tugged a five out of his pocket. As he dropped it in the snifter, he said, “You know any of the old jazz-age standards? Cole Porter, Gershwin, that kinda stuff?”

“If it was in a film, I can probably at least fake it,” Todd answered. He occasionally did movie reviews for the paper, too, and had submitted several reviews for old classics as they came out on DVD or Blu-Ray. While they hadn’t yet put them in the print edition, they occasionally made it to the paper’s website on slower news days. He’d contemplated just putting them up on a website of his own, but getting hits on text reviews was hard if you didn’t have a built-in audience.

“How about ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So?’,” his interlocutor asked.

“I know the Aretha Franklin version,” Todd said.

“Good enough,” the other man replied, nodding.

His fingers found the opening chords, and he swayed into the rhythm. The other guy didn’t head back to the bar, or out to one of the tables; he stayed by the piano and nodded along, his eyes closed. It was obvious this version was a little faster than the one he was used to, but not by much.

The piano was miked; Todd was not. He enjoyed singing along, but the bar wanted a more formal ambiance, so he generally did so quietly. He was a little surprised when the other dude came in on the opening chorus in full voice:

>   
>  _It ain’t necessarily so,_   
>  _It ain’t necessarily so,_   
>  _The things that you’re liable_   
>  _To read in the Bible,_   
>  _It ain’t necessarily so._   
> 

Damn, this guy was good, way better than the nasal Jersey accent had led him to believe; he had some serious pipes. He’d dropped it an octave from where Aretha sang it, as Todd would have, and his phrasing was crisp but flexible, jazz-tinged where Aretha’s vocal was flavored with gospel.

>   
>  _Now, Little David was small, but oh, my!_   
>  _Yeah, David was small, but oh, my!_   
>  _He fought big Goliath,_   
>  _Who lay down and dieth,_   
>  _Yeah, David was small, but oh, whoa, my!_   
> 

The dude in the tux was really getting into it. Somehow, Todd figured that it wasn’t actually King David the guy was singing about.

>   
>  _You ever heard about Jonah? He lived in a whale,_   
>  _You ever heard about Jonah? He lived in a whale,_   
>  _And he made his home in_   
>  _That fish’s abdomen,_   
>  _Yes, Jonah, he lived in a whale._   
> 

Todd wasn’t as familiar with the original version, but he knew this version skipped the chorus that mentioned the Devil, and he couldn’t be sure the singer knew it too. So, he came in on the bridge, hoping he was just loud enough to be heard and that his guest at the piano would take the cue. He took it, all right, slipping up over Todd’s voice into the first harmony and letting a faint wail slip into his voice.

>   
>  _To get into Heaven,_   
>  _Don’t snap for a seven,_   
>  _Live clean, and don’t have no fault!_   
>  _Lately, I take that gospel,_   
>  _Wherever it’s possible,_   
>  _But with a little grain of salt._   
> 

Todd inclined his head slightly, and they swapped lines, with the singer dropping back into the melody and Todd falling into the harmony line below him instead of above.

>   
>  _Methuselah lived nine hundred years,_   
>  _Methuselah lived nine hundred years,_   
>  _But tell me, who calls that living,_   
>  _When no gal is givin’_   
>  _To no man what’s nine hundred years?_   
> 

They rolled lazily into the last chorus, Todd’s fingers dancing on the keys, throwing in grace notes and playful runs while their voices soared around each other.

>   
> _That’s why I say,_   
> _It ain’t necessarily so,_  
>  _It ain’t necessarily, necessarily so,_  
>  _I’m preaching this sermon to show,_  
>  _Whoa,_  
>  _It ain’t necessarily so._  
> 

Todd let the song swing to a close, despite a strange reluctance to do so. He played for singers all the time, at this bar and other ones, and occasionally sang along, but there was something more here. He felt like somehow, he and this other man had shared something almost intimate. The scattered applause they were getting from the bar felt intrusive instead of laudatory.

As the other man sighed and turned back towards the bar, Todd reached out and tapped him on the wrist. “Hey,” he mumbled, “you’re not bad.”

“You either, kiddo,” the no-longer-stranger replied. His cheeks were rosy, now, from the warmth of the bar and the exertion of singing. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Todd,” he answered. “Todd in the Shadows.” He wasn’t sure why he’d given his stage name instead of his legal one, but somehow it felt more true than the one he gave in daylight.

The other man smiled. “Harvey,” he said. “Harvey Finevoice. Listen, kid, I’m on tour right now, but if you’re ever up in Minnesota, look me up. I could always use a good backing band, and you’ve got chops.” He plucked a business card from his pocket and handed it over with a flourish.

“I can’t imagine going somewhere that cold on purpose,” Todd blurted, “but if I do, sure.”

Harvey laughed. “It ain’t that bad. See you around, Todd.” He slipped back into the gathering crowd at the bar and was gone.

Todd glanced down at the card. Apparently Harvey had his fingers in several pies; not only was he a singer, he was a detective or bodyguard or something for some outfit called Atop the Fourth Wall, at a website called That Guy With the Glasses.

He slipped the card into his suit pocket and launched into a Jackson Browne song. He’d have to check that site out later; hey, maybe it would lead to something more interesting than playing in piano bars where he couldn’t afford the drinks.

**Author's Note:**

> "It Ain't Necessarily So" is by Ira & George Gershwin, from the 1934 opera _Porgy and Bess_. The version Todd and Harvey cover here is the 1961 recording by Aretha Franklin with the Ray Bryant Combo, and if you haven't heard it, go listen to it, because it is glorious.


End file.
